Wednesday March 25th 2026
Engineers working on another Borders wind farm
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
Scottish Government has approved a wind farm development that will see the tallest turbines in the Borders sited at the heart of the Lammermuir Hills.
The Dunside development, at Byrecleugh in Longformacus, will comprise 14 turbines, some reaching 220 metres in height, and will be be located in a Special Landscape Area.
When members of Scottish Borders Council’s Planning & Building Standards Committee met June last year they accepted a planning officer’s recommendation not to object to the Dunside scheme even though it was accepted the wind turbines “would become a dominating feature within the Lammermuir Hills”.
The decision came after committee members paid a site visit to the development site.
The site lies adjacent to the Fallago Rig Wind Farm. which consists of 48 turbines in total which are up to 125m to tip.
The decision not to object was taken after it was concluded that the “damage had already been done” and that the area was already “a wind farm landscape”.
Now a Scottish government reporter has concluded that while there would some “significant impacts” they would largely be “contained and localised”.
The original application for the site included 15 turbines but that was reduced to address a number of concerns raised by statutory consultees.
Sarah Dooley, principal project development manager in Scotland for the applicant EDF power solutions UK, said: “We have engaged extensively with local communities and stakeholders across the Scottish Borders for many years on this project.
“The wind farm is expected to generate around 91.8MW of low carbon electricity, enough to power up to 53,000 homes while supporting Scotland’s efforts to achieve net zero targets, improve energy security and reduce energy costs for consumers.”
A community benefit fund is to distribute £11.25m to local groups over the lifetime of windfarm’s operations.
Tweet Share on Facebook
